Rock Nacional

Book Chapter

Summary *

In the late twentieth century, rock nacional became one of Argentina's most important youth music movements, the influence and impact of which extended deeply into the Argentine musical scene, and indeed beyond. In doing so it did not neglect the country?s musical past but built upon it, by synthesizing and replacing in popularity the three great musical movements that preceded it: the tango of the 1900s to 1940s, the traditional folklore of the 1930s to 1950s and the urban staged folklore movement of the 1950s to 1970s.Rock nacional, therefore, is essentially fusion music, with sounds, lyrics and performances constantly mixing elements from diverse musical traditions, both national and international. At different times in its history, rock nacional has blended itself with tango, traditional folklore, urban staged folklore, rock'n'roll, hard rock, blues, pop, symphonic rock, punk, jazz, jazz-rock, US country, US folk, heavy metal, bossa nova, samba, reggae, ska, bolero, twist, murga (Argentina's carnival music), salsa, candombe, etc. Rock nacional is not characterized by a particular kind of melody or rhythm, because throughout its history many different styles were employed. Its trademark is a particular use of language. The bands that belong to rock nacional sing in Spanish and account for Argentine reality. Because of the different rhythms that rock nacional encompasses, its relationship with dance is extremely diverse, ranging from total exclusion to sub-variants with dance at their core. Information provided by the agent in SIGEVA